House Panel to Weigh Mayorkas Impeachment Articles

The first of the four categories under the second article alleges that Mr. Mayorkas “knowingly made false statements to Congress that the border is ‘‘secure,’’ that the border is ‘‘no less secure than it was previously,’’ that the border is ‘‘closed,’’ and that DHS has ‘‘operational control’’ of the border (as that term is defined in the Secure Fence Act of 2006).

To illustrate the “false nature” of those claims by Mr. Mayorkas, the second article points out that the number of inadmissible aliens encountered by U.S. authorities at the border with Mexico averaged about 590,000 annually between 2017 and 2020. When Mr. Mayorkas took over as DHS Secretary, however, the total “skyrocketed to over 1,400,000 in fiscal year 2021, over 2,300,000 in fiscal year 2022, and over 2,400,000 in fiscal year 2023.”

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The second article also notes that the number of individuals encountered at the border who are on one or more of U.S. national security terrorist watch lists totaled 11 from 2017 to 2020, compared with 331 from 2021 through the first three months of the current fiscal year.

The other three categories on which the articles claim Mr. Mayorkas lied to Congress and the public include “the scope and adequacy of the thousands of Afghans who were airlifted to the U.S.” during the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, that “apprehended aliens with no legal basis to remain in the United States were being quickly removed,” and that he knowingly made statements “supporting the false narrative that U.S. Border Patrol agents maliciously whipped illegal aliens.”

All 18 of the HCHS Republicans are expected to vote for both of the articles, while the 15 Democrats will unanimously oppose them.

“All they are endeavoring to do with respect to this sham impeachment is to run away from their do-nothing extreme record and try to distract the American people with this political stunt,” Mr. Jeffries told reporters.

“House Republicans have produced no evidence that Secretary Mayorkas has committed an impeachable offense. House Republicans have produced no evidence that Secretary Mayorkas has violated the Constitution. House Republicans have produced no evidence that Secretary Mayorkas has broken the law,” Mr. Jeffries continued.

The House Democratic leader told reporters the Mayorkas impeachment “is a political hit job ordered by two people, Donald Trump and [Rep.] Marjorie Taylor Greene [R-Ga.]. House Republicans have clearly turned their ever-shrinking House majority over to the extremists.”

Similarly, Mr. Thompson pointed out that he has been a member of the HCHS since its inception following the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001, and he said, “This is a singly focused effort led by Republicans who are just trying to drum up this notion that somehow this is an issue the Republicans can ride into November.”

Democrats got a boost from an unexpected source, George Washington University School of Law Professor Jonathan Turley, a conservative legal scholar who also opposed the two impeachments by Democrats in the 117th Congress of former President Donald Trump.

“I don’t think they have established any of those bases for impeachment,” Turley told Fox and Friends viewers early Monday on Fox News, where he is a regular contributor of analyses on legal issues. “The fact is, impeachment is not for being a bad Cabinet member or even a bad person. It is a very narrow standard … I just don’t believe that they have a cognizable basis here for impeachment.”